Critics' Voices

TELEVISION

BLIND FAITH (NBC, Feb. 11, 13, 9 p.m. EST). A man whose wife has been shot in their automobile later becomes the chief suspect in her murder. Any resemblance between this two-part docudrama, based on Joe McGinniss's book, and the Boston Stuart case is coincidental -- and lucky timing for NBC.

CITY (CBS, Mondays, 8:30 p.m. EST). Valerie Harper's new series is a pleasant surprise: a savvy comedy about a municipal troubleshooter fighting city hall from the inside.

THE LOVE BOAT: A VALENTINE VOYAGE (CBS, Feb. 12, 9 p.m. EST). The show that once defined TV fluff sails again in a two-hour movie. No copies of Proust on board.

MOVIES

TREMORS. Kevin Bacon fights off an attack of 30-ft.-long earthworms in this crowd-pleasing sci-fi flick. Shrewdly written, energetically directed and played with high comic conviction, Tremors is bound to become a cult classic.

STORY OF WOMEN. In 1943 the Vichy government of France condemned Marie-Louise Giraud to the guillotine for the crime of performing abortions. In this eloquent work, Marie (Isabelle Huppert) is neither a monster nor a savior, but a microcosm of her amoral country.

BOOKS

VINELAND by Thomas Pynchon (Little, Brown; $19.95). In his first novel since Gravity's Rainbow (1973), a major writer turns his attention to all manner of American zaniness and produces a soaring, comic and visionary tale.

THE QUINCUNX by Charles Palliser (Ballantine; $25). At 788 pages, this first novel seems designed for a more leisurely age. It was. The author's faithful pastiche of Victorian fiction -- with its careful plotting and moral punctiliousness -- miraculously springs to life.

MUSIC

UB40: LABOUR OF LOVE II (Virgin). Ten sweet covers of reggae classics by a formidable British band whose respect for solid island soul is surpassed only by its unique skill in recapturing the magic of the originals.

THE INNOCENCE MISSION: THE INNOCENCE MISSION (A&M). Pleasing, slightly spacey sounds that are tinged with '60s folk rock and psychedelia, then spruced up with shades of Joni Mitchell ("I showed him my notebook/ The underside of my soul") and a little jolt of feminism. Overwrought -- but promising.

BUNK JOHNSON: THE KING OF THE BLUES (American Music). For New Orleans jazz purists, this may be the most eagerly awaited reissue of the past three decades. These classic 1944 sides -- first recorded on acetate and now available on compact disc -- capture the remarkable tone and timing of the man who was Louis Armstrong's early idol and whose comeback in the '40s helped launch a traditional-jazz revival.

KENNY DAVERN: I'LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS (Musicmasters). If tone, swing and dexterity are the prime criteria for jazz clarinet playing, color Kenny Davern a virtuoso. Hot (Royal Garden Blues) or cool (My Melancholy Baby), Davern gives a dazzling performance that shows why he's such a standout among the post-Goodman generation.

THEATER

KING LEAR. Anglo-Irish wunderkind Kenneth Branagh, acclaimed for his demythologizing film of Henry V, makes his U.S. stage debut as director and co-star of a similarly populist Lear, at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum.

UNCLE VANYA. San Diego's Old Globe Theater finds all the humor and all the pain in a superb staging of Chekhov.

THE ART OF SUCCESS. British playwright Nick Dear and a top-notch off-Broadway cast find echoes of everything from Thatcherism to the Mapplethorpe photo flap in a roistering portrait of satirical 18th century artist William Hogarth.

ART

THE ART OF THOMAS ROWLANDSON, Frick Collection, New York City. Imagine an 18th century English comic novel come to life, and you have Rowlandson's watercolors and caricatures: rakish, bemused, sharply wrought. Through April 8.

MONET IN THE '90S: THE SERIES PAINTINGS, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The impressionist's meditations on such emblems of French landscape and culture as poplars, the cliffs at Dieppe and Rouen Cathedral. Through April 29.

THE AGE OF NAPOLEON. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. This extravagant effort, covering the period from 1789 until Napoleon's final defeat in 1815, is the best show the Costume Institute has mounted in years. There are garlands of lovely frocks, especially in high-waisted "Empire" style, but the real fascination lies in the men's gear. The rude outfits of the sans-culottes lasted only briefly. Soon the legendary textile factories of Lyons disgorged the finest velvets and silks to burnish triumphant commanders. Embroidered golden bees turn upon practically everything -- including stockings. But the man responsible for all this luxe, the Emperor, had relatively simple tastes. His famous plain gray overcoat, the black bicorne (which he wore sideways, instead of front to back) and even his field tent are on display. They are the great draws of the exhibition. Until April 15.